Paladin Love
So for those who didn’t get it, the Podcast Episode 7 intro was sarcasm, pure and simple.
Mostly.
See, if there’s only class we have the most difficulty in defeating, it’s Paladins. As we’ve stated many times previously, their ability to self-heal is greater than our ability to damage them, but they don’t hurt us, as we’re able to kite them. We did it in PvP just yesterday as one of them tried to kill us.
We’re not sure what spec he was, but he tried to engage us in melee combat. We attacked with our pet and kited the pally in a big circle. He chose not attack Hobbes but instead to chase us in our big circle. While he was busy trying vainly to bust us up, the rest of our team destroyed the rest of his team, ’cause they assumed he was their pocket-healer and didn’t heal themselves. Then we all cleaned his clock, captured the objective, game over.
When we take on a paladin, we go into the fight knowing that MQoSRDPS is not the key to winning. The solution is to tie him up and make him forget that his strength is making us waste our ammo and focus on him, which keeps his teammates alive because we’re not blasting them to pieces instead. In chess, one does not have to capture a piece to make it impotent. That’s how one fights a paladin if one is a hunter; negate, not kill.
But we digress.
A Paladin has always been a cockroach – we use the term with affection – in that they are impossible to kill, but don’t inflict any damage. But with the state of the Retribution tree as it was on the beta, the cockroach became a “nuclear bomb cockroach”, destroying anything and everything in its path. Class Balance was horribly askew.
Class Balance is a term bandied about with little discretion, most people ignorant to its significance. What is Class Balance? Well it’s not Rock-Paper-Scissors; Hunter beats Warlock, Warlock beats Rogue, Rogue beats Hunter. No, that’s Class Imbalance.
If we have a see-saw and put a hunter on one end and a warlock on the other, and the thing tips to the hunter every time, that’s an Imbalance. And that’s bad mojo.
People will argue that imbalance exists when they argue that “I can’t beat a warlock!” But you know what, you can beat a warlock, you just have to adjust your tactics against that class. You can beat that warlock, you just can’t beat him using the same strategy that you used against a rogue. You must be creative and sneaky and smarter than the other guy, or you’re gonna die.
When we talk about Class Balance, what we want is for a hunter to be capable of defeating all the other classes, but not be able to always one-shot them after a Scatter Shot.
When we talk about Class Balance, what we want is for a rogue to be capable of defeating all the other classes, but not be able to stun-lock everybody and kill them in five seconds, without allowing a chance for self-preservation.
When we talk about Class Balance, what we want is for a Paladin to be effective in dealing damage, tanking, and healing, but not be able to frantically destroy people while retaining the ability to out-heal the damage we inflict.
So with the beta Ret Pally OPness – no laughing! – what we had was a class that was invulnerable and unstoppable. That’s called God Mode, foshizzle, and as much as we all dream of having power of that kind, it’s absolutely bad mojo.
Not only is it bad for those of us fighting Paladins, but honestly, it’s bad for the Paladins themselves. When there’s no challenge, when there’s nothing to work for, you might as well get yourself a private server and give yourself Tier 12 gear and fight nothing but cows.
How long are you going to play that game? And for how long are your friends going to want to play that game with you?
Blizzard has a programming policy of over-powering classes to test them, then bringing them down, nerfing them, to preserve Class Balance. But usually this is tightly controlled and carefully guided so as to not produce fear and uncertainty in the players. An example of this tactic is evident in the continued discussion of bringing high-end (level 80) hunter-DPS down a bit in the beta by increasing raid boss-armor and slightly increasing the damage potential of everybody else. It’s subtle, gradual, and explained coherently. We may frown, but we won’t stomp off, screaming into the night.
Quite the opposite of, “To the ground, baby!” isn’t it.
It’s like our friend BoK has frequently espoused: Blizz just has never really understood what they want the Paladin class to be. And with that declaration, it is our opinion that, out of this confusion, Blizz has made Paladins underpowered, then overpowered, then underpowered, then a mess, then confused, then suddenly AWESOME, then nerf-punched them in the goiter… basically changing the direction the class is going, multiple times. We would suppose that paladins are a bit tired of the shenanigans, and this latest nerf-howitzer is just the latest beat-down.
With 3.0.2, warriors get to dual-wield 2h weapons, warlocks get to change into a demon, priests get real DPS, hunters get pets-aplenty, shaman get hunter-loot, rogues get moar daggers, druids get Slingshot Pounce, and even mages get a discount card to the Sears women’s section for purty fall dresses.
Ret Paladins? “We’re going to nerf the h3ll out of you.” Nice. It may be necessary, but that’s not a gift-wrapped present with a bow and a card, like everybody else got. Holy Paladins? Welcome to competing for cloth with the squishies, a lá Spell Power. Prot paladins? Druids and Warriors can AoE-tank, foshizzle, you’re not unique anymore.
Least-loved? That’s a bit strong.
Least-understood? You know, it certainly seems that way.
So we jumped on the Ret-Pally Nerf! bandwagon and made some noise on our podcast. What does that mean? It means your plight isn’t unnoticed and we understand your feelings; we do not hate you. Really.
Really.
…
Cockroaches! /hug
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A good read.
having a pally as my main i totaly agree with what youve said, yes Ret pallies need a nerf, we all know it lol. But we are mis understood, and our future is hazy at best. I myself use prot spec because back when i was a noob, i hated rogues, so i made myself into an anti rogue weapon of holyness. I lolled at many a rogue trying to bring me down while leveling, would finish killing my mob, then wipe up the mess i made with the unfortunate rogues face. Ret pallies may be all the go atm, but im faithful to prot and will be throughout lich king.
We may be mis understood, but we get by, one way or another. We wouldnt have rolled a pally otherwise
Well stated BRK. If only those devs would find the Pally divining rod…..
A good read as always,
I trust Blizz to eventually get the class right, but in the mean time it is so frustrating to have to go through the buff/nerf cycle endlessly. I have two Pallys at lvl 70 on EU-Draeor, a prot and a retri. I’m still utterly in love with the Prot changes, and yes warriors and druids can now aoe tank – but prot paladins are still the king of it, just as Warriors are still better single target tanks but pallys can now do that without too much trouble as long as they keep a good eye on their mana bar.
I still love Retri too, it remains one of the most fun specs in the game imo, but the changes made to the spec were very poorly handled in my opinion, they lifted us up into the stratosphere, then dropped us crashing back to earth. The highly powered version should never have reached live realms. They should have known the kind of reaction it was going to get – the other classes QQing in shock that Retri’s were actually damned scary for once and then WHAM nerf hammer, and it was all a bad dream and Reri’s are back where we started. And seen as whining because Blizz can’t get the class right.
apologies for the long comment
My highest level pallie is 36, despite rolling dozens of them. I like the concept, but the play confuses me…
it kind of amazes me how people still freak out when you joke about another class.
Its a joke people, you should be laughing, not guilting brk into writing a very lengthy (enjoyable to read) explanation.
Nice post though.
I can tell you why that pally kept coming after you and trying to get you in melee range, BRK, and It doesn’t have much to do with spec. Here’s a complete listing of the >10 yards range abilities that Paladins have:
Holy Shock (6s CD, 31-point Holy Talent)
Avenger’s Shield (30s CD, 41-point Protection Talent)
Enlightened Judgements (10s CD, 41-point Holy Talent)
Hammer of Wrath (6s CD, requires the target be under 35%/20% soon)
Repentance (1 min CD, 31-point Retribution talent)
And the last one is a 20-yard incapacitate for 6s.
On live, with about 1200 AP and 400-ish spell power, my judgements hit for around 700-800. Maybe with strong healing gear, you could get one to hit for around 1000, once every 8-10s. You could also get in one 1600-ish blast from Holy Shock or 1000-ish from Avenger’s Shield, if you’re a tank or healer.
Paladins may be cockroaches, but playing a cockroach is no fun in a solo engagement with pretty much any other class — cockroach won’t kill anyone, and in a game of attrition, eventually a paladin’s mana will run out. So our basic strategy of “live and outlast” has a fixed time-frame on our end, possibly shorter than that of our attacker. (I’m thinking pet/kiting + AoTV + Viper Sting…)
I’m not arguing that Ret Paladins are not OP currently, but I’m having trouble seeing what role you expect other paladins to follow… we’re hard to kill, but our only real option to kill someone else is to hope for some other player to come along, realize that we’re a healer who might heal them, and help us dispatch the other player. Like a priest, only without Smite, SW:P or the like.
I will miss the ret pally very much but alas, now I will absolutely crush them into the ground no questions asked because what their OPness did for me was make me one heck of a better player because I strived to understand their class and take them down. Oh ya pay back is gonna be sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet! = D
A good argument about balance. I keep telling people – I don’t want to autowin against Pallies, I just want to have a *chance* to beat them one on one. The reply, inevitably, is L2P or L2Kite… but I do know how to kite, I kite the living crap out of Rogues, Warriors, and Feral Druids. So how is it that I can’t beat Paladins by kiting them? Maybe because they’re somehow different.
I hope the Paladin class ends up in a good place… somewhere they can be competitive without turning into Pre-BC Rogues.
“For all their Light, Might, and all that’s Right mumbo-jumbo, is there a class more despised, loathed, and spat-upon than Paladins?”
–BigRedKitty, 14 August 2008
I respecced holy out of guilt. I invested 400G into crafted blues and did a few outland quests to guild my ret set for leveling in northrend, but succumbed to temptation after the talent reset and specced ret before the expansion. I was instagibbing classes in full pvp epics! I went up against a lock in what looked like s4 shoulders and while it was a close fight, I’m convinced that I would beat him 9 times out of 10. In level 67 blues. That was not right.
Now the changes to holy were awesome- I am a much better healer than I was before, and am much harder to kill now.
The latest nerfage leaves pallys in many ways in a worse spot than they were in before 3.0. Just like the hunter mana issue, Blizz has made changes and then nerfed things that were working and balanced instead of fixing the things that broke the system.
Since they are hotfixing many of the pally nerfs, we’ll soon see how bad it is.
If mana return (or lack therof) makes soloing unbearable again, then my pally will simply be my mining alt.
started as a holy, just did not feel the love, went to ret, did not feel the fun. our group had the hardest time finding a tank. Went prot. and am now prot for life. even if they made us rouch’s on bad bang bang as ret. there is nothing like the mobs beating the heck out of you, while the healz stay’s back keep n you up and the rest just pick em off as they like. I hope they find a balance for our class and sooner is better then later. good read. and as with you I have the most problems with 2 classes, Hunters, and Locks. both have pets to slow me down. if I kill your pet I get hammared with arrow’s or dot’s. if I head after you well the pet/demon gets out the can opener and gets the meaty snak they were after. still working on that stradagy
My first max level character was a pally. I loved her. I loved the ret tree. It wasn’t dps, MQ or otherwise, but it was fun. This was pre-BC and I wasn’t a raider so that’s what I was. I listened to the lawlret jokes, was essentially NEVER wanted in a group, and eventually, I rolled alts. Lots and lots of alts. Shaman, hunter, druid, priest. And they were wanted in groups and have done fun things that I honestly feel my ret pally had no shot at. So a few weeks of ret-OP ness was like being given a present for all those years of lawlret and loneliness. And now the gift is being taken back. And even then we’re a joke! “Nerfed to the ground!” indeed! I understand the need for class balance! I don’t want to play on god-mode. But having your class almost fully redesigned everytime there is a major patch… well, it gets old. Like a TV show you love but they keep screwing around with the scheduling.. eventually you just lose interest and watch something else.
Welcome back to the highchair, here is your “lolret” bib
Nice post BRK.
Ret is just a VERY sour spot when people joke about it. With WotLK, we will be able to deal DPS with the best of you, with the only difference in numbers because of skill.
And like I stated in my last comment, these where mainly PvP nerfs, although some where aimed at PvE. Apparently, we where as God-Mode as Hunters.
I crack up at all these people posting how they are going to PAYBACK these ret pallies once the nerf hits.
I keep wondering how maybe 3-4 weeks of OP is causing such great strain on these folks that they feel so oppressed they need to get back at the pally.
Really? You’ve developed this hatred since the patch dropped?
Wall of text alert!!!
The problem that Blizzard has had since the inception of World of Warcraft is thier inability to balance between PvP and PvE. The changes they made to Retribution Paladins made them raid-viable and put them on par with Rogue DPS in raids. The problem is that they have no “curve” to their changes when they are applied to PvP. So, the boost they got for fighting raid-level bosses such as those in Mt. Hyjal and Black Temple are evenly applied to PvP, thus the damage they do to a mob with hundreds of thousands of health or more is the same unmodified damage applied to a toon in PvP that may have 15k or less health.
This is an act of pure lazyness on the developer’s part. There should be two sides of the mirror, one that is applied to PvE settings and the other applied to PvP. For instance…
Crusader Strike: (A crude example with ficticious data, but you get the point)
(PvE) Base weapon damage * 3 + 1089 Holy Damage + Strength *1.5
(PvP) Base weapon damage *3 + 1089 Holy Damage
The idea behind that is not too difficult to apply, especially not for a development team such as the one Blizzard apparently has on staff.
I am all for each class having a particular class that they have an advantage over and one that has an advantage over them, but when a class can go into a battleground and damn-near 1-shot ANY class, there is a problem. Now I realize that my Mage is a “clothie”, but none-the-less, she has 340 Resilience and is just shy of 10k health and I was literally 1-shotted by a Paladin the day of the patch. It annoyed me so much that I stopped doing BGs and Arena until they “fixed” them, not “nerfed” as the Paladin community would have you believe. LOL
I know of several people who quit playing WoW due to their lack of game balance. I’ve heard countless rants of how Warlocks are “forever OP” because the head guy at Blizzard has a Warlock. I have heard cry after cry from each and every class about the others and generall everyone has a complaint about one or more of the classes in general. I know alot of players are not happy with the new “knock back” abilities, such as Typhoon and Blast Wave, but I have to say that it’s pretty f’ing cool to see 8 toons in EotS go flying off of the bridge from a big Tidal Wave and a lone Boomkin standing proud as he snatches up the flag and brings it home for the score. LOL
My own personal gripe with “Multi-Boxing” and how it should be outlawed form the game, and I look at it from two totally different views. First, it is completely overpowering to have 5 toons synchronously fire an attack (or heal). I find it to be an absolute atrocity and horrible game service on Blizzard’s part to even allow such actions to continue. Also, when you think about it, that person with 5-linked toons just prevented 4 other players from joining in that particular battleground. That is a loss of 4 individual minds, 4 individual skill sets and their very presence as a “multi-boxer” weakens the team they are on because those 5 toons must ALWAYS be in the same place.
On a side note, nerf Warlocks! LOL j/k
I dueled a warlock when first testing out fire spec with my Mage. With “scorch” critting for around 1400 each, “Fire Blast” critting for 2400 each and my instant Pyroblasts critting for around 5400 each (when procced), and the only thing the Warlock did is dot me twice and then “Drain Life” and his healing from that was so powerful, I lost the duel, that’s insane. (Not to mention that I counterspelled him when it was off of CD) Crazy!
Great Post BRK, and i am in total agreement. At this point, RET pally’s have essentially hit the “Godmode” button. I have a NE hunter spec’d MM (simply because i love dealing out massive crits) and before the patch, I, like most hunters would have quite a bit of trouble dispatching a pally of any spec. And now they’ve become juggernauts.
A pally on the ally side whined in one AB the other night that everyone’s just mad cause now they can actually dps. Well mr. pally when you can hit Bubble and then 4 hit up to 6 opposing fighters of any class (except for maybe wars), take no dmg or stun or dots whatsoever, then simple heal urself afterwards should you have caught some dmg on the tail-end of the fight….I’d say a couple peeps would be a littly mad ya.
No problem with pally’s doing dmg, but i make the suggestion here and now: When a pally Bubbles, their skills should be limited to Healing themselves only, and shouldnt be allowed to deal any dmg whatsoever when it’s up, that essentially will remove the “Juggernaut-Godmode” aspect from them and even things up a bit.
Drauka 70 NE hunter
Vek’nilash Server
I have attempted three times to write out a reply to this, as apparently, from the murmurings I’m hearing, I helped spark this post, but the spam filter has denied me repeatedly.
So to you, BRK, I offer my latest post on SES. Please note that I lost no true respect for you from this event – it was more frustration that some I considered to be primarily a PVE Hunter as myself would diminish himself to reveling in the same PVP debauchery that helped kill the PVE Retribution Paladin.
You’re still one of the most rockin’ Hunters out there, and I could never state otherwise.
It’s kind of sad seeing PvP crying by other classes effecting the PvE potential of the Ret pally. I play much more PvE and it just sucks that I’m now back to getting no response in LFG chat when I tell them I’m a Ret pally due to all the PvP crying.
pallies shouldnt be so concerned with being dps viable in the same way a rogue shouldnt aspire to be a healer…just because he has max first aid.
there was a time when if a player had a healing type tree, he specced that way or didnt raid. period.
the rock used to say it best, “know your role and shut your mouth”.
there was a time when if a player had a healing type tree, he specced that way or didnt raid. period.
Yes, and Blizzard has admitted the error of their ways. I grew up in those days as a Hunter. It was terrible, and it was wrong, and the ideology of Wrath is far superior.
the rock used to say it best, “know your role and shut your mouth”.
A Paladin has three vastly different talent trees, and thusly has three roles: DPS (Retribution), healing (Holy), or tanking (Protection). To deny the class a fair shot at one or any of those roles is pathetic beyond reason.
This is not Vanilla. Leave your old-word prejudices at the door or get left behind as the world moves on without you.
arg you post eating Blog, you!
Lets try this again: My Pally was my first 70, and my Hunter with her pet for life Grubber is my second (Boars need some love to, Foshizle!).
My Pally in her Season 3 Holy gear spec’d 53 Ret and 8 Holy. This has been the most fun healing I’ve ever had. I stay within 10 yards of the boss/enemy judging ever 8 seconds for mana return, Replenishment and a little damage. Depending on how the fight goes I can play a game of balance between doing a little more damage (consecrate mostly) or sitting there board out of my mind trying to anticipate incoming damage.
With the latest nerfs and not knowing how far they will go my dreams of finally getting out of the healing role with my pally are dwindling. Looking at the pathetic state Holy is in even that path to see raid content is looking bleak. Looks like I’ll have to take my Hunter from her PvP only role (BG’s mostly) and bring her to raids.
Some day we will have equality where the DPS rich will be forced to give up and/or limit their DPS, so DPS equality can be enforced, remember that is “Fair”. Or they could just set it up so that each class has an opportunity to do top DPS and it becomes a matter of skill, gear and RNG to see who is top. Remember the choice is your’s this November.
I dunno, but I suck at pvp, but with MM spec, I’m a beast at murdering Paladins.
Even ones with 16k health.
LOL Ret Paladins (me being one when not a shaman or hunter) are taking this way too seriously. I’ve been writing about it for a while now so I won’t go on a tangent here BUT!
I mainly decided to write in because of that picture! You’re in FL right? I caught one of those bastards in my garage this morning. Scared the wife out of her skin, she’s not from here so the concept of a Palmetto Bug or “Huge ass Cockaroach” was new to her.
@Doomilias:
the rogue comparison would be a valid one if rogues had a tree which was devoted specifically to healing. but rogues don’t have a healing tree, they’re a dps class, and their talents reflect that. but paladins have three talent trees for three different roles, and I don’t think it’s all that outrageous for paladins to expect Holy to not suck compared to other healers, Prot to not suck compared to other tanks, and last but certainly not least, Ret to not suck compared to other dps classes, especially after Blizzard put so much time and effort into making Ret a viable raid spec in 2.3, and ESPECIALLY not after ret has been given such fantastic raid utility. However, there are now three mana battery specs in the game: survival, shadow, and retribution, and if retribution does not have the dps to back up its ability to be a mana battery, raiding guilds won’t take ret paladins, period. So raiding ret-tards (it’s a term of affection, really!) have a reason to be concerned about their futures.
@Sade
So in other words, you want everything. Good luck.
@The point of this thread
You want Blizzard to “balance” X classes considering Y spells, and everyone to be nice and happy. Good luck.
I really don’t understand why you guys are still yammering about all this…after all these years.
I had a long, elaborate post delineating my stance on Paladin DPS. Then I realized, it would be nothing more than flame-fodder. So, I will make a simple statement, an old and well-known figure of speech that sums up where I feel paladins should stand.
Jacks of all trades, MASTERS OF NONE.
Blizz feels different. Or at least they did. Then they changed their minds. They’ll probably change it two or three more times, lets be honest.
BRK is right: Blizz doesn’t know what to do with you. I feel they should bring you well above lolret (where you were 2.4). But when a ret beats me in a heroic, wearing greens, that’s a huge problem. Healing or tanking utility should reduce your potential to do DPS (especially with the game-ruining soon-to-be dual specs).
And this is strictly a PvE argument, I couldn’t care less about PvP.
There are 10 classes in the game. There are 10 DPS classes in the game. There are 4 tanking classes, and 4 healing classes. It makes perfect sense to reward a “pure” DPS class with slightly (yes, slightly) higher DPS than a hybrid class.
Top (100%) = Hunters, Rogues, Mages, Warlocks
Mid (96%) = Shamans, Warriors, Death Knights, Priests
Bottom (92%) = Paladins, Druids
Heh, looks like my shortened post ended up long, anyway. Well, flame away. I don’t really care.
Where does that leave us raid wise then? If we can’t heal as well as heal specd preist, dps as well as a mage/lock/rogue/hunter, or tank as well as a warrior/druid, then why would anyone take a ret pally on a raid? Should I be punished by choosing a talent tree that Blizzard provided by not being asked to go on raids?
The nerf was expected, and probably necessary. Hopefully, Blizz will work out an effective solution to Ret’s issues, but Pallies must be respected for questioning whether that will be true, given the precedence Blizz has established in it’s treatment of that class.
That being said, the nerfs are being instituted in bits, with a couple today and the rest in 3.03 (presumably next week.) Ghostcrawler has pointed out that Blizz is analyzing and looking for responses to the current in-game changes (which means they are paying close attention to it.)
However, despite all that, I would point out one thing I haven’t heard discussed. In nerfing Pally Burst for PVP, GC also said they were nerfing pally DPS for PVE because, paraphrasing, the PVE pallies are more overpowered that the warriors and hunters, both of which appartently need rebalancing as well. The 10% increase in boss armor is part of that, but be aware taht more may be coming down the pike for our own classes (warrior being my main and hunter my “second main”.)
Little tale of my (former-main) rogue and a pally. So, I’m trying to get into SW to get my fishing achievement. I’m at 100% health and from behind a pally that’s at 10-15% health attacks me. He stuns me with whatever the hell that stun they do is, gets a couple swipes for huge damage and I am unstunned. I have no combo points because I didn’t get a hit in yet. I hit him once, he bubbles, stuns me again, and takes me out. Whole time elapsed was maybe 10 seconds.
Now, I am not the greatest PvPer – but I do at least enough to not be labeled a total trash player. I am also well geared – not T5/6, but well enough.
My point is that when A) a player with only 10% health will jump you and B) will take you out without you being able to take a breath – there is an issue. I don’t think any other class could have even come close to doing that to me. When my buddy was in WSG yesterday, 8 hordies attacked a lone ally pally the entire length of the BG before finally downing him. Something is wrong with that.
The ability to stun, wear the best armor, heal yourself so easily and make yourself invulnerable – plus adding in huge damage is just too much. Priests can bubble, but they are lucky to get a decent heal off before the damage makes it disappear, and once it does, they are squished like a grape anyways – pally’s don’t have to deal with that.
now – about the druids instant casting into travel form….(continues rant, lol)
Awh the Pally Bubble… BRK, you should gather the greater wow blogging community to do a poll to see if Ret Pallies lost their ability to bubble could they be allowed to have the DPS as a legacy “pure” DPS class?
Yes Ret DPS was too high and needed to be toned down. They may have gone too far nerfing all Seals, those used by Holy and Prot (i.e. not Seal of Command) and least desired by Ret should have been been skipped by the Nerf bat, and GC has commented that they may have gone a bridge too far with those.
Yes Stuns are annoying, I’d argue they should break on damage, wait Repentance does, Hammer of Justice does not… but I would say the same should go for other classes, trying casting a heal against a Rouge, Warrior, Mage or MM hunter, interrupts, pushbacks (nerfed in 3.0.2) and silences are able to completely lock down Paladin healing and damage spells.
Yes Giving Ret an instant cast heal from a Judgment crit is like giving him an extra 2+3K health pool, but that was done because Pallies have NO way to close the gap to get into mele range. This way they can survive longer and eventually run to that casting target… once again Hunter kiting ftw.
To all you pure DPS classes out there… do you have a CC ability? do you have a raid/party buff/debuff? do you have an ability from more than one school of magic (silence mitigation)? do you have a pet? If you answered yes to one or more of the above then you are not a “pure” DPS class. You just can’t heal or tank. Neither should a Ret pally, they should give up their ability to heal and tank in order to DPS, call it a Death Nugget Form tm.
Pally issues aside, the very concept that all specs of all classes can be perfectly (or even nearly) balanced in all modes of play (world PvE, raid PvE, arena PvP, world PvP, etc) seems absurd and impossible to me. There are just too many constraints and I question whether they can all be simultaneously satisfied.
I think that is is asking too much. I wish that Blizzard would, and could, just say things like “spec X of class Y just isn’t meant for Arena but it’s great for raid PvE”.
Perhaps the eventual inclusion of multiple specs might allow Blizzard to give up on the futile balancing quest.
Doomilas I played as holy in that era, Getting jumped 1v1 in world pvp you might as bubble-heart because you can delay death a long time but you had 0 chance of killing them,
Level 70 pvp is getting pretty close to that right now, I run around bg in t6+s4 as holy , 300 resil, Rogues, mages,boomkin,ele shaman can all blow me up in 15 seconds or less and shut me out of healing. Hunters take longer but can mana drain me to 0 in around 1 minute unless i am hiding behind a pillar and since my only way to kill them is to melee at 250 dps thats not happening.
S4 Holy paladins had no representation in high level tourneys, no signifcant representation in 2’s and 3’s and tied with hunters for with worst in 5;s above 2200. We got a number of nerfs and no significant gains so its seems likely that will be worse at 80. Ret look to the only viable arena spec at the moment and blizzard is nerfing it into the ground baby,
Glad to you don’t hate us Pallies BRK. But a roach?! My feminine pride is hurt at being a bug.
A good read. And in regards to paladins not being understood by both players and developers its a sad fact. One can’t blame the players as they have never really had any decent spec to go up against in PvP from Paladins that showed or lasted for any amount of time before it was “fixed”. And that same wavering from developers over the past 4 years has caused people to expect Paladins to be a gimikie or flashy class.
I find it disgusting and sad that after 4 years Blizzard and the development team behind them still aren’t able to create a class that operates the way they want, but would still remain unique like every other class.
What was that about B^4 blogging about Hunters? :p
Anyway… Paladins are the best class in the game. Great utility, good in all aspect of the game: Tanking, Healing, DPSing, Buffing. We wear plate, have quite an important part in the Lore of things. So we’re full of win.
A lot of people, I take it, haven’t actually played a Paladin. With the changes to Ret and Sheath of Light, you can drop some 8K HL heals in decent gear, and if you’re just doing Dailies or questing and you save a guy getting beat on by mobs who’s almost dying by healing him all the way up in one go, it feels good.
I admit Ret Paladins are OP from burst, but Blizzard have just balled the talents right up. They haven’t got a clue. About 12 talents focused on Crit, and Crit Damage, and Righeous Vengeance and Art of War were just 100% lazy. Looks like some decent changes are coming through which will see skill continue to shine through.. but people will still get cracked by massive judgement crits because of Fanaticism. Oh well. At least we’re a mile better than before as Ret. Holy isn’t too bad, I just hope the Seal-Jedgement system doesn’t nerf tanking too much. :’(
“we do not hate you. Really.”
-BigRedKitty, 28 October 2008
“is there a class more despised, loathed, and spat-upon than Paladins?”
–BigRedKitty, 14 August 2008
Oh dear.
my opinions are actually not beyond reason. you can claim they are, but then i would claim that your claim on my opinion is actually the one beyond reason.
and yes, paladins have a dps tree. but for them to aspire to be equal or better than pure dps classes is silly, i think. they were a very important part of bc raid groups, it was essential to have one for proper raid comp and buffs.
the bottom line is that any of the hybrid dps classes should never be able to do more, as it pertains to base skill and talent theorycraft, than pure dps classes.
the crying over the nerfs is what really gets me. you were given lots of power, took it for granted, and have turned into a huge mass of wailing babies now that its been scaled back. classes get buffed, classes get nerfed…constantly. deal with it.
@ Doom – spoken like the rogue who seldom sees nerfs.
The real problem is that Blizz is breaking Prot to attempt to fix Ret. There was nothing wrong with Prot, but now Prot’s already small mana regen is F’ed up.
The other problem is that converting Ret to “sustained” dps (which is viable in PVE) is utter fail in PVP. Ret is very kitable, and the only way to combat that burst damage.
Sure ret’s dps and regen was too high, but the are F’ing things up trying to fix it.
rogues have had plenty of nerfs over the course of their existence. remember back when rogues could backstab with swords? no? i do. how about shadowstep no longer being usable while rooted? thats enormous, no more shs while in drioodroots or nova. how about when hemo got a huge pve buff, then got completely nerfed a patch later? of course not, youve never played a rogue…have you?
i will agree with you, however. prot took a huge hit that was definitely unnecessary when seal damage was dropped across the board. that needs to be fixed as a top priority.
if ret is utter fail in pvp, then dont play as ret in pvp. other classes have fail trees in pvp, paladins arent the only one. on the flip side, holy has wonderful pvp aspects, and is a proven arena winner. just because you want to use a spec in a certain situation doesnt mean that blizz agrees, or has to cater to you. talk to hunters about their current state of arena, where NONE of their three trees is desirable.
your last point couldnt be more wrong, and demonstrates how little the general wow population (because this is often used as an excuse to bitch by all classes about all specs) knows about software development, especially when considering video games. do you know how pendulum works? if you push it all the way to the left, it will swing all the way to the right, contuing its momentum until it has once again found a balance in the middle. tuning software performance works the same way. before you can determine the center of a line you first have to define where it begins and where it ends.
we arent even on the path to level 80 yet. who knows how things will be then? if blizzard has made any mistake it was giving ret paladins a yard to play in before the fence was finished being built.
@Doomilias: You’re missing a very important aspect here: only *4* of the 9 (soon to be 10) classes are pure in a strict sense. They are hunters, rogues, mages and warlocks. All the rest are hybrids (either healer/DPS, tank/DPS or healer/DPS/tank). Now to claim that only those 4 classes should be able to properly DPS is pure nonesense. If a class has a DPS tree it should be able to DPS to the highest possible standard, otherwise that tree is nothing but a waste. When you spec for maximum PvE effectiveness on your rogue (same goes for PvP) you don’t go 20/20/20, you go deep into ONE of your 3 DPS trees. Same goes for a paly or a druid or a shaman or a warrior.
Kblah, Orc Hunter,
Kazzak EU
@doom
Your initial point came off as being arrogant but your further explanations do have merit.
Ret’s pendulum went too far one way so they’ve completely dragged it the other so they have a better idea of a middle. Which is why it does seem they went too far with the nerfs. The problem is that it badly affected other specs that weren’t so OP. But there is still plenty of time for tweaking before a majority of people reach level 80 so I can’t imagine all the changes will be permanent or that something won’t be offered in return to make up some of the difference.
I also take offense that some pallys started getting on Doom saying he has never experienced nerfs. Every class has period. I don’t care which one it is there has been a nerf or major change at some point to it.
@Kblah
Blizz has mentioned several times that hybrid classes are not meant to do the full dps of a pure dps class but they should be competitive or bring something to the table that makes them worth raid spot.
kblah, you have successfully taken what i said and changed the context. i did NOT say that those classes shouldnt be able to properly dps, i said that they should not be able to do MORE than pure dps classes. i further qualified my statement by referring to trained skills and talents as a base for possible damage dealt…and player skill will always trump that.
EDIT: i should have said AVAILABLE dps, not possible damage dealt
@doomilias: this is exactly what you wrote: “and yes, paladins have a dps tree. but for them to aspire to be *equal* or better than pure dps classes is silly, i think.” (emphasis is mine)
I fail to see how I took what you said out of context when you clearly expect to do more DPS/damage than a paly just because you play a pure DPS class.
@Sonvar: I care a lot less about what Blizz says than about what Blizz actually does. As the situation is right now on the live servers *ANY* of the hybrid classes has equal or better DPS potential than the pure classes.
Kblah, Orc Hunter,
Kazzak EU
you took my second comment out of context…which is the one you responded to:
“Now to claim that only those 4 classes should be able to properly DPS is pure nonesense. If a class has a DPS tree it should be able to DPS to the highest possible standard, otherwise that tree is nothing but a waste.”
again, never once have i said they shouldnt be able to PROPERLY dps. and i do agree that they should be able to dps to the highest possible standard…but i think that the hybrid dps standard should be set somewhat, but not entirely out of sight, below pure dps classes.
and yes, i do expect to do more damage, as a rogue, than a ret pally. and i think it IS silly for a ret pally to EXPECT to do more damage than a pure dps class.
whats the point of pure dps classes if they cant do their job better than the hybrids? at that point, give EVERYONE a healing tree, a tanking tree, and a dps tree. wouldnt that be fun?
I think right now a lot of Paladins would settled for sustained mana regen. Every other melee dps class/spec has way to quickly regenerate their energy resource. The exception may be Enhance Shaman, but my bro has one, and he never seems to be starved for mana, probably due to totems and Shamervate, possibly Water Shield. Paladins did have JotW. But, it has been dialed back so much its virtually useless. It might as well be the old talent that was in that spot for as much good as it does. Oh, well.
“What do you expect us to use? Harsh language?” -Aliens
Imo the whole idea of the paladin class is wrong. Plate healers?….with total immunity spell, fast heals, instant 100% heal. It sounds extremely stupid on paper.
I do however think that there should be a paladin class. But they should be somekind of holy warriors. Not holy healer/warrior hybrid. A melee class that use magic (judgements etc). The healing aspect is what fucks paladins up. Because they can heal themselves so damn well they get extremely overpowered when they also get very good dmg capabilities.
Too bad tho because they can hardly recreate the class now.
I have to agree with Doom. Pure DPS classes should be able to out dps any hybrid class. Note that I said should because specs they choose, skill, and the fight itself can play into it.
Hybrid classes specced for dps should be competitive with pure dps classes but I would never expect as a whole that a hybrid class would outdo pure dps classes. There are certainly fights that will give those hybrids dps classes an advantage but not every fight is going to lend to it. Because while being a hybrid class Blizz has to balance giving you abilities that are specific to each tree which pure dps classes won’t have as all there trees are for dealing damage. Though they will have some utility/CC abilities also but overall are given more class skills that are damaging abilities than a hybrid class.
I love how you start a post on class balance with a lengthy series of anecdotes about how awesome you are against Ret Paladins, before going on to talk about how everyone else has been getting steamrolled by them.
As far as I know, you’re not one of those guys who spends hours on his realm forums, arguing with other grown men about who’s better at slaying cartoon monsters, but you do have one of the biggest internet egos I’ve seen. It’s like the time you posted screen caps of the stats from BGs you were in — any ‘tard can go 23-5 when the opposition is horribly geared, but of course you went into great detail about how amazingly you played.
You remind me of one of those guys who can’t help himself as he bores the shit out of his adult friends with stories about his college days, always ready to one-up the next guy’s stories with anecdotes about your — naturally greater — awesomeness.
Do you corner people at work and tell them how awesome your Hunter in World of Warcraft is?
@doom, sonvar:
A tank needs only *ONE* tree to do his job properly. A healer needs only *ONE* tree to do his job properly. I fail to see why you expect DPS to be any different. If Blizz was to say “alright, all you pure DPS classes can only pewpew anyway so here, go deep in two of your trees” then yes, I would expect more damage from hunters/rogues/locks/mages when compared to the hybrids. Otherwise I fail to see your point.
kblah, your failure to see my point was obvious in your first post. its as simple as this: if a hybrid dps spec can perform better than a pure dps class, while being able to switch – MID-RAID – between dps and tanking or dps and healing…well, what the hell is the point of having a pure dps class? if you employ your logic to evolve the options each class can use to PVE, the homogonization will continue to a point where everyone can either heal, tank, or dps equally.
you are suffering from dps envy, and its ok…youll get over it.
I regularly follow this blog because my main is a hunter and the stories are typically entertaining. This – however – just seems to be another one of those stories where some nub beats another nub and thinks that he is a PVP god.
BRK – this would mean something if you were known for PVP like Megatf. So, thanks but no thanks to the bridge to your bridge to nowhere – we can get enough of this @$#% on the WOW forums!
@doom:
“DPS envy” … in case you missed it I play a hunter. Always have, always will. Anyway, I won’t continue this here, I guess there’s enough of this trolling on Blizz’s forums.
I lol-ed IRL
And your question is very good BTW: what IS the point of pure DPS classes ? My opinion is there is none TBH, a raid can function just fine without us. But it’s damn fun to play as pewpew.
Thanks for this, I have been looking for something like this to do our blog.